[OE. lýtelnes: see LITTLE a. and -NESS.] The attribute of being little.
1. Smallness of quantity, amount, bulk, stature, degree or extent.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gram., xxxviii. (Z.), 228. Sume syndon qvantitatis, ða ʓetacniað mycelnysse oððe lytelnesse [v.r. lutelnesse].
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIII. xxvi. (1495), 460. Affocius is a lytyll fysshe and for lytylnes it not may be tak with hoke.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 63 b. His vylenes, lytelnes, or other deformite of nature.
a. 1550[?]. in Dunbar’s Poems (1893), 317. For littilnes scho was forlorne, Siche ane kemp to beir.
1642. Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., II. ix. 86. Those of unusuall littlenesse are made ladies dwarfs. Ibid. (1655), Hist. Camb., 83. Lowness of endowment, and littlenesse of Receit, is all [that] can be cavilled at in this foundation.
a. 1667. Cowley, Greatness, in Verses & Ess. (1674), 121. I confess, I love Littleness almost in all things, A little convenient Estate, a little chearful House, a little Company, and a very little Feast.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, II. viii. Observing the littleness of the houses, the trees, the cattle, and the people, I began to think myself in Lilliput.
1828. Chalmers, in Watson, Life A. Thomson (1882), 81. I thought not of the littleness of time, I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity.
1883. W. Blaikie, in Harper’s Mag., Nov., 902/1. A marvellous littleness of hand and foot.
2. Want of greatness, grandeur or importance; insignificance, triviality, meanness, pettiness; smallness of mind.
1388. Wyclif, Ps. liv. 9 [lv. 8]. I abood hym, that made me saaf fro the litilnesse [Vulg. pusillanimitate], ether drede of spirit.
1483. Cath. Angl., 219/1. A Litilnes, decliuitas ingenij est, modicitas, paruitas, paucitas.
1502. Ord. Crysten Men (W. de W., 1506), II. i. 84. Knowynge the lytylnesse & fray[l]te of humayne nature.
1694. South, Serm., II. Ep. Ded. If the supposed Littleness of these matters should be a sufficient Reason for the laying them aside.
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 197, ¶ 4. There is a sort of Littleness in the Minds of Men of wrong Sense.
1779. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 20 Oct. Mrs. Thrale … is so enraged with him for his littleness of soul in this respect.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., Ser. II. iii. (1869), 78. Littleness is their element, and they give a character of meanness to whatever they touch.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Eur., xi. (1894), 262. The mountains … speak to man of his littleness and his ephemeral existence.
1896. W. Ward, Talks with Tennyson, in New Rev., July, 81. Contemptuousness … was, he said, a sure sign of intellectual littleness.
b. An instance of this; a mean, petty quality or action.
1660. Ingelo, Bentiv. & Ur., II. (1682), 110. Neither are our minds troubled with those Limitations and Littlenesses which we meet with in our preception of other things.
a. 1797. H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. II. (1847), III. xi. 292. One of those vainglorious littlenesses which too often entered into his composition.
1832. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), III. 38. Pitiful Littlenesses as we are.
1859. Tennyson, Idylls, Ded. 25. Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, Before a thousand peering littlenesses.
1865. Merivale, Rom. Emp., VIII. lxiii. 66. The greatness of their general character overshadowed their littlenesses.
